MEET THE STAFF SERIES

Most Hostile Customers are Guilty of Energy Theft-Mohammed Adamu

CCD:  Briefly tell us about yourself.

MA: My name is Mohammed Adamu. I was born in Kaduna. I had my primary, secondary, and tertiary education in Kaduna.

CCD: When did you join the Company and what's your primary assignment?

MA: I joined the Company in 2019. And My Primary assignment is to increase the collection efficiency of the Company. 

CCD: Can you tell us more about Corporate Intelligence Department? 

MA: Corporate Intelligence is a Department that helps the Company to meet up its targets in terms of collections. The Department also monitors the customer usage of our energy and on this regard, we make sure every kilowatt counts and we make sure we block linkages of energy use by the customer.

CCD: How do you handle customers who try to shortchange the Company through meter bypass?

MA: Immediately after finding out such abnormality, instantly we take the load reading via the use of a clamp ammeter and we have our experts open the meters and find out the type of abnormality because it could be internal or external. If it's external it's something you can see physically but if it's internal is something that we cannot justify until the meter is open. However, after the load is taken, we issue a disconnection notice to the customer, then we disconnect which we would inform the customer to report to the Head Office to collect his letter for further actions. 

CCD:   What are the penalties?                                                                       

MA: The penalties come in different ways, it depends on the nature of the infraction and the customer’s load. If it is a by-pass, the customer pays penalty, loss of revenue, and then a reconnection fee, and if it is an outright energy theft, the customer pays Loss of revenue which at the end, the customer can be directed to MAP Department for him to get a Meter before his light can be restored. 

CCD: How often do you do PPM monitoring and inspection?

MA: PPM monitoring, the moment we went to the customer’s house we start looking from the service drop to the connection point where we expect to see the meter though some were mounted on poles, we check the seal of the meter if it's intact and we look the wires that goes in and out and we insert the meter number to our app to see the vending trend and at times we insist on seeing the Vending slip, it’s after viewing the vending trend, if we are not satisfied with the information we saw, then we proceed to inspect the meter thoroughly.

CCD: What do you consider the most challenging part of your job? 

MA: Most of the challenges are non-cooperation from the customers; sometimes, when you go to a house, some deny access to the house while some insult us and some even lie against us. Some customers, especially the guilty ones, are hostile and often refuse to cooperate with us.

CCD: What do you do at your leisure time? MA: I play football and I watch movies, especially series movies.

CCD: Any appeal or suggestion to Management or Staff?

MA: My advice to the Management is to let them add more effort to what they are been doing in terms of ensuring making things possible for the staff to carry out their tasks.